The last thing the container shipping sector needs when it is plagued by overcapacity and falling freight rates is the arrival of yet another mega-class of vessels that, literally, put most other maritime traffic in the shade.
But that is exactly what happened earlier this month when the Marco Polo, owned by France’s family-controlled CMA CGM, left the Chinese port of Ningbo on its maiden voyage between Asia and Europe, the world’s busiest container trade route.
The ship – about the length of four soccer pitches – is the biggest container vessel ever built in terms of capacity, capable of carrying 16,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the industry standard measure for a container.